


lost and found

by claudias



Series: i knew that i kept this for a reason [1]
Category: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, Kinda, Post-Season/Series 01, The Picture Scene, kenji needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudias/pseuds/claudias
Summary: Kenji drops the photo, hands trembling, letting it fall to the floor of the car. It doesn’t make sense, nothing makes sense, why is thishere?
Series: i knew that i kept this for a reason [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199072
Kudos: 17





	lost and found

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii
> 
> 1) this spawned out of me and rita making stuff up about kenjis mom and now we’re here  
> 2) this was written before season 2  
> 3) this will have a happy ending eventually!!  
> 4) this is not at all connected to my other series

Kenji is lost.

That’s one thing he can admit, that any semblance of his past life is gone, and it’s as if he’s drowning, but he can’t surface, only being dragged further down by the bubbling emotions inside him. And after the initial shock of Ben’s death—he can hardly even bring himself to think those words—he’d just… shut down. Because that was easier than feeling. It’s easier to go numb and pretend that nothing’s wrong even though _everything’s_ wrong, and there’s nothing that can make it right.

If he’d have done something, _anything,_ Ben would still be here. He would be sitting on the docks with the rest of them, and he’d crack some nerdy joke that wasn’t really funny in an attempt to cheer them up, but Kenji would laugh anyway.

But he’s not here. He’s gone.

Kenji finds his gaze lingering on Ben’s fanny pack for long periods of time because he doesn’t want to forget Ben. He doesn’t want to forget his face, or his smile, or him at all. And he’s lost track of time since Ben has fallen, but it already feels like an eternity ago, and the details are fading quick.

After being driven away from the docks due to another dinosaur attack, the campers decide it’s no longer safe to stay in one place for too long, and so they head north, to Main Street.

Kenji trails behind, taking up the rear of the group as they make their way through the jungle. Occasionally, he’ll see the others glancing back, giving him sympathetic looks. He thinks they know he’s lost himself and who he once was, and honestly, he’s not sure if he’ll be able to find that again.

Maybe he can play the part, some watered-down mimicry of the confident boy he’d made himself out to be. That had been an act, too, but before, it had been different. Before, it had been self-defense, because if the others saw who he really was, then he’s not so sure they would like him. Now, it might be the only thing keeping him from falling apart completely. If he holds onto the past and pretends that nothing’s gone wrong, then maybe he can be okay.

Main Street turns out to be a bust, too. It’s currently occupied by the T. rex, and none of them want to risk an encounter with her. So they turn to their last option for safety: the genetics lab. Granted, it hadn’t exactly been a safe experience last time they’d ventured there, but Darius reasons that if it hasn’t been overrun by dinosaurs, then it’s their best bet. Plus, with Yaz’s leg continuing to worsen, the lab might harbor some medical supplies or at least something they can use to help her.

As soon as they set off, Sammy pulls Darius and Kenji aside as Brooklynn helps Yaz along the dirt path up ahead.

“Even if we do find something that’ll help her,” she begins, her gaze focused on Yaz. “She can’t keep walking like this. We need another form of transportation. Like-Like a car, or something.”

“The garage,” Kenji says. “There’s a garage that stores a bunch of ACU vans and other vehicles, and…” He trails off. He’s not sure how this thought even slips through, but thinking of his ‘V.I.P.’ experiences at the park hurts just as much as everything else now, thinking of his summers spent alone, left to wander unsupervised while his father oversaw business.

“And maybe there’s a vehicle we can use?” Darius finishes his sentence for him. “Kenji, that’s great! Where is it?” When Kenji doesn’t answer, he says, “Kenji?”

Kenji snaps out of his daze. “Uh,” he says, racking his mind for the answer, but his thoughts are clouded, and he can’t quite think straight. “It should be on the way to the genetics lab.”

“Are you guys coming?” Brooklynn asks. Further ahead on the path, her and Yaz have stopped, staring at the trio behind them.

“Yeah,” Darius says. “But first, we’re making a pit stop.”

They make it to the garage within hours, by foot. Several times, they had to stop for breaks. The beating sun is relentless, and the leaves of the jungle trees provide little shade, yet Kenji can’t bring himself to care. He keeps pushing on, ignoring the heat exhaustion, ignoring the fatigue, ignoring the hunger, because if he slows down for even a minute, he’ll get caught up in his thoughts again, and he can’t let that happen.

The garage is enormous, much larger than Kenji remembered. The light switch doesn’t work, and the darkness only adds to the eeriness of the whole place, because who knows what could be waiting in the shadows, ready to attack? Warily, the campers enter.

Inside, rows upon rows of cars sit, both personal vehicles and ACU vans, plus a few motorbikes. They’ve hit the mother lode.

Darius grins. “One of these cars has to have keys,” he says, then gently elbows Kenji in the arm. “Good going, Kenj.”

Kenji nods, managing a weak smile.

They split up to make the most of their time, and Kenji goes from car to car, trying every door and window and trunk, peering in the windows to see if any keys were left in the ignition, but with each unsuccessful attempt, his hope dwindles. Everything’s locked, and at this point, the odds of finding an unlocked car are low.

Finally, he makes it to a car in the way back of the garage and pulls on the door handle, expecting it not to budge, but by some miracle, it opens. Kenji grins and slips into the driver’s seat, ready to search the car for anything that might be of use, but most importantly, the keys.

A glint immediately catches his attention, and he notices sunglasses clipped onto the sun visor. Stylish ones, too, and not, like, old sunglasses that dads would wear on a fishing trip. Whoever’s car this is, they have taste. And Kenji’s not about to let a perfectly good pair of sunglasses go to waste. “Well, don’t mind if I do,” he says to himself, taking the sunglasses off the visor and putting them on, but just as he’s doing so, a paper flutters down to land on the dashboard.

When he picks it up, he realizes it’s not a paper at all. It’s a photo.

From what he can tell, there are three figures in the picture—a man, a woman, and a young boy—standing in front of a Christmas tree. Kenji squints, trying to get a better look at the picture, and lifts the sunglasses to rest on top of his head.

And then, suddenly, it hits him like a punch to the gut. He can now clearly see who’s in the picture, and he _knows_ exactly who it is, because that boy with the missing tooth, grinning at the camera, is _him._ And standing behind him, stoic, is his dad, which can only mean the woman is…

Kenji drops the photo, hands trembling, letting it fall to the floor of the car. It doesn’t make sense, nothing makes sense, why is this _here?_ The universe must be playing some sort of cruel trick on him, because this can’t be real. How can it be real? He’d never known his mom—his dad said she’d walked out when he was a child, and Kenji had been too young to even remember it. For years, he’d fantasized about the day she’d return. He’d spend hours watching the front door as if just by staring at it long enough, it would open, and there she would be, arms spread, and he’d run to catch her in an embrace, and for the first time in his life, he’d feel like he was _home._

But all those fantasies harbored a similar trait—his mom had always been a blur, something just out of focus and unrecognizable, like she wasn’t quite tangible. Now Kenji has a face to put to those memories he’d created in his mind, and… it’s nothing like he’d expected. She looks so much like him; the resemblance is uncanny.

He takes in deep, shuddering breaths, trying to keep his hold on reality. He doesn’t even try to hold back the emotions that are flooding in; it’s far too late for that. _Whose car is this? Who would even have this picture?_ Kenji tries to come up with an answer in his head, but nothing’s adding up.

He picks up the picture, taking another long look at it, and another realization makes itself apparent. He’s seen this picture before, on the shelf full of dusty photographs at his house. Kenji had never spent too much time looking at those photos. Thinking about his family had always made him unreasonably upset, because they weren’t a family. It never felt that way, anyway. His dad was always at work, and when he _was_ home, he was spending time with Candy.

But this photo, he knows it, he’s passed by it a million times, but… he’s never seen the version with his mother. It had always just been a picture of him and his dad, and he’d always thought something was amiss about it, the way it was cropped, but now it makes so much sense, even if everything else doesn’t.

That’s how Kenji knows, undeniably, it’s his picture.

When he’s calm enough to think clearly again, he leans over the armrest and pries open the glove compartment, hoping to find a clue of whose car this is, exactly. A possibility is piecing itself together in his mind, and he doesn’t know if he wants it to be true.

Kenji pulls out the purse that’s stuffed in the glove compartment and rifles through it. It feels… wrong to be looking through someone else’s personal belongings like this, but he needs answers.

Finally, he finds what he’s looking for: the driver’s license, because this will tell him exactly who this car belongs to, and…

It’s unmistakably her. _Kimberly Martin,_ the name on the license reads, that’s her.

That’s his mother.

A thousand more questions rush into his mind, but one thought stands out to him. For whatever reason, his mom had been on this island, and there’s a possibility that she still could be. Selfishly, Kenji wishes she is, because if she’s still here, then… he could see her. Meet her and talk to her and ask her every question he’s ever had.

And if she’s not here, then…

No matter how hard he tries, Kenji can’t escape the fact that his odds of getting off this island alive are slim. And the odds of ever meeting her are even slimmer.

He continues looking through the purse. Not much else of any significance except for… another photo, tucked away in a worn-down wallet.

This one’s just a closeup of Kenji—maybe four years old—sticking his tongue out at the camera. Scrawled messily on the back of the photo are the words _‘My baby’_ with a little smiley emoticon next to it, and Kenji’s chest tightens, unwanted tears springing to his eyes. Suddenly, his mom feels a lot more _real._ That’s _her_ writing, and… she’d loved him.

His gaze returns to the family photo as he sets the purse aside, but this time, instead of shock, the feeling that simmers in the pit of his stomach is anger.

Not at his mom, but at his father for hiding this from him. It hadn’t been accidental that Kenji knew nothing about his mom, and it definitely hadn’t been accidental that she had been cut from that photo at their house.

In a moment of rage, Kenji rips the photo, intending to cut his father out the same way he’d done to his mother, but his hands shake so violently and he’s not thinking straight and the photo tears down the center, right through his mom’s smiling face, a jagged rip cutting his family in half.

“No,” he murmurs, dropping the two halves in his lap and witnessing the damage he’d just done. “No, no, no, no, no, no, _no, no…”_

Frantically, he holds the two pieces together, as if that alone will mend the photo, and looks around the car for anything he can use to put it back together, but there’s nothing. Kenji’s left alone with the destruction he’s inflicted upon himself, because of course, that’s how it is, how it has to be. He can’t have anything good without destroying it. Maybe that’s all he’s capable of.

He sobs openly, then, letting out all the pain he’d bottled up for so long. It’s nothing but raw emotion that had been clawing at his throat, begging for release, and he’d pushed it all down to feel nothing, and now everything’s erupting at once, an avalanche of pure _feeling,_ and Kenji wants nothing more than for it to stop.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, clutching the two halves of the photo to his chest, endless tears streaming down his face, and he doesn’t think it’ll ever end, because for so long, he’d pretended everything was okay, but now it’s really screwed up, and he has no one to blame but himself.

Finally, the car door swings open, but Kenji can’t even bring himself to look.

“Kenji, there you are!” says Darius, excitement tinging his voice. “I found a…” He trails off, clearly noticing Kenji’s state. “What’s wrong?”

Kenji takes in a quivering breath. He doesn’t trust himself to answer, but…

“I’m fine,” he says, lifting the sunglasses from the top of his head and putting them on as if that’ll shield the fact that he’d just fallen apart completely.

“Oo-kay,” Darius says. He looks back and forth nervously, unsure of what to do. “I found a car with keys still in the ignition, but it looks like you found one, too. Do you wanna take—”

“We’re taking yours,” Kenji interrupts. He can’t spend one more minute here. He’s suffocating.

“Okay, yeah, sure. I’ll, uh, give you a minute?”

As Darius retreats, Kenji hangs his head, letting his hand fall against the steering wheel in defeat. The only photo of him and his mom is ruined, and there’s no way he can fix it. Ben’s dead. And he’s trapped on this stupid island, and he’d been so foolish to think that his mom might still be here, too. A moment of naivety, a glimmer of hope that maybe something could go right for once, but what are the chances that she’d be here—alive, at that? No, he needs to face the facts. He’s alone.

Even behind the tint of the sunglasses, he can’t pretend that everything’s alright, not like before. Carefully, Kenji unzips the fanny pack and places the two halves of the photo in there. It feels ironic, it really does. Now he has no choice but to admit to himself that everything has fallen apart in his hands, and picking up the pieces isn’t an option anymore. Maybe there are no options left.

For a moment, he lingers in the car, but not long enough for the flood of emotions to wash over him again. It’s over. He can’t spend any more time on feeling, so he’ll do what he always does. Kenji puts his armor back on, puts his walls back up, and this time, he doesn’t intend to let them down.


End file.
